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Tickets start at $20, or
enjoy the full weekend with an All-Access Pass for only $150.
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Jacob Ming-Trent performing How Shakespeare Saved
My Life at the 2024 Reading Room Festival. Photo by Peggy Ryan.
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Single
tickets for the Reading Room Festival are on sale now!
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Our third annual Reading
Room Festival is jam-packed with staged readings, panel
discussions, workshops, community celebrations, and more. This
four-day festival will highlight the work of playwrights and
adaptors Barry Edelstein,
Emily Lyon,
Reynaldo Piniella,
and Whitney White,
interwoven with talks and activities led by scholars and industry
experts from DC and beyond. Scroll down for the full schedule of
events – you won't want to miss a moment!
Single tickets to
Festival events are available for $20, or you can
experience all the festival has to offer by booking an All-Access Pass for
only $150 – that's 25% savings per event.
Get your tickets now
and make a plan to join us for this exciting weekend!
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Karen Ann Daniels, Austin Dean Ashford, Caleen
Sinnette Jennings, and Raymond O. Caldwell in conversation at the
2024 Reading Room Festival. Photo by Peggy Ryan.
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The
Reading Room Festival
Thursday,
Jan. 30 – Sunday, Feb. 2
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ALL-ACCESS
PASSES: $150;
Individual events: $20
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"Witnessing
evening after evening of Shakespeare-inspired shows feels like a
perfect full-circle moment to the tradition of playwrights
inspiring playwrights." – Eileen Miller, The Georgetown Voice
All-Access Passes
guarantee access to all staged readings, panel discussions,
workshops, and community celebrations included in the Festival for only
$150.
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DAY 1 –
Thursday, Jan. 30
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6:30pm
SHAKESPEARE
AS A STARTING POINT: Shakespeare with Community
Moderated by Karen Ann
Daniels
Panelists: Barry Edelstein and Laurie Woolery
Folger’s Director of Programming &
Performance and Folger Theatre Artistic Director Karen Ann
Daniels leads the annual festival kickoff in conversation
with author, adaptor, director, theater scholar and Where
There’s a Will podcast host, Barry Edelstein; and
Latine playwright, educator, facilitator, producer and
Director of Public Works at the Public Theater Laurie
Woolery. Together, they explore the unexpected ways
Shakespeare’s legacy has endured, and how engaging with theater-making
enhances the relevance and value of Shakespeare in the
everyday lives of people.
Learn more and
get tickets
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7:30pm
HENRY
6
by William Shakespeare
Adapted and directed by Barry Edelstein
In a special presentation, Artistic Director
of San Diego's The Old Globe Theatre Barry Edelstein shares
selections and commentary on the process of creating Henry
6. The Old Globe’s 2024 adaptation of Shakespeare's
rarely produced Henry VI, Parts I, II, and III
featured a cast and crew of over 1,000 San Diegans and over
50 community-based nonprofits and organizations. Charles
McNulty of the L.A. Times declared: "This is
what Shakespeare for the people really looks like." In
the spirit of this community-building epic, this
presentation of Henry 6 shows video footage of the
production with interactive elements.
Learn more and
get tickets
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6:00pm
LIQUID
COURAGE
Festival Happy Hour
Join us in the Folger’s Great Hall for light
fare, libations, and music as we celebrate the 3rd annual
Reading Room Festival! Mix and mingle with the Festival’s
featured playwrights, artists, and scholars.
Available with
an All-Access Pass
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6:45pm
WRITING,
ADAPTING, AND TRANSLATING SHAKESPEARE FOR PERFORMANCE
Moderated by: André
Hereford
Panel: Julissa Contreras, Julián Mesri, Christin Eve Cato
With few exceptions, Shakespeare wrote his
plays based on preexisting material. Now, his own plays are
being adapted, translated and reimagined across the globe
to tell new stories and incorporate new perspectives.
Moderated by Metro Weekly’s film and theater critic
André Hereford, this panel of artists—writer, performer,
podcaster, educator, and advocate Julissa Contreras;
playwright, composer, and musician Julián Mesri; and
playwright, dramaturg, poet, educator, lyricist,
songwriter, and performing artist Christin Eve
Cato—explores the challenges and opportunities of turning
beloved 400-year-old texts into compelling contemporary
works.
Learn more and
get tickets
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8:00pm
VALOR,
AGRAVIO Y MUJER (The Courage to Right a Woman’s Wrongs)
by Ana
Caro Mallén de Soto
Directed by Tatyana Marie Carlo
Adapted by Julissa Contreras
Presented in association with Expand the Canon
This play is a
celebration of women’s agency, written by Shakespeare’s Spanish
contemporary Ana Caro Mallén de Soto (1590-1646). Following a
scorned heroine determined to carry out a revenge
tragedy-turned-comedy, this play includes hallmarks familiar to
Shakespeare’s writing, including cross-dressing, love triangles,
swordplay, and soaring verse. Doña Leonora dresses like a man and
crosses Europe to get revenge on her ungrateful ex who left her
unmarriageable. Along the way, she manipulates others in her sphere
causing confusion and antics – and ends up with a triumph that she
deems better than any murder.
ASL
Interpreted
Learn more and get
tickets
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11:00am
Make
Hamlet Your Own: A Rewriting Workshop
Facilitated by Alexa Alice
Joubin
Come explore the secrets that belie the spoken
and unspoken words in one of the most widely adapted plays
of Shakespeare. Led by Alexa Alice Joubin, English
professor at George Washington University, this interactive
workshop showcases several rewritings of Hamlet,
such as Last Action Hero, starring Arnold
Schwarzenegger, and Shamlet, a Taiwanese rollicking
parody, and offers participants a hands-on opportunity to
rewrite key passages from their own cultural perspectives.
Let’s make Hamlet our own!
Learn more and
register
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12:00pm
DC,
I LOVE YOU
Facilitated by Katherine
Harroff
DC, I Love You is an immersive performance experience that
brings real love stories to life across the neighborhoods
where they originated. Short plays are staged in local
businesses and community spots, with each new location
revealing a new chapter in a truthfully inspired romcom
adventure. Join us for an exclusive workshop with the Reading
Room Festival, offering a first look at one of the
original DC, I Love You scripts, set to premiere
around the District this Spring. Discover love, art, and
community in a way that’s uniquely DC.
Learn more and
register
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4:00pm
THE
BEATRICE PROJECT
by Karen Ann
Daniels
Join Artistic Director and playwright Karen
Ann Daniels, as she invites audiences to walk through the
beginning stages of writing her new adaptation with music
of Much Ado About Nothing. During the festival, a
playwright, a scholar—Faedra Chatard Carpenter, Associate
Professor in the Department of Performing Arts at American
University, a professional dramaturg, and cultural critic,
and an MC — MC, playwright, and artivist Miki Vale come
together as a creative team to see what sparks, and share
process and product, in conversation with the audience,
with an open rehearsal opportunity for audiences. How will
they mine the text to tell a contemporary story through
music and song? Where should they go next? Come and join us
and participate in creating this brand-new work!
Learn more and
get tickets
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8:00pm
BY
THE QUEEN
by Whitney White
Directed by Nicole Brewer
From her roots as a provincial princess of
France, to her ascension to the throne of England and her
eventual downfall, Queen Margaret is one of the most
complicated, fascinating, and thrilling characters in
Shakespeare’s works. She is a warrior, a wife, a
politician, a mother… and this dynamic new drama, lifted
and remixed from the text of Henry VI and Richard
III, finally gives her story the telling it
deserves.
Learn more and
get tickets
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10:00pm
MAGGIE'S MIXER
Festival
Happy Hour
Celebrate the 3rd
annual Reading Room Festival with us in the Folger’s Great Hall!
Enjoy delicious food, refreshing libations, and music while
connecting with the festival’s talented playwrights, artists, and
scholars.
Available with an
All-Access Pass
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11:00am
Translating
Shakespeare's English into ASL
Facilitated by Alexandria
Wailes
Leaders from Visionaries of the Creative Arts
(VOCA) lead a discussion on the challenges and
opportunities that occur when translating Shakespeare's
works into American Sign Language. Joined by Directors of
Artistic Sign Language, they will explore how to approach
the translation process before diving into specific
passages of Hamlet to demonstrate this work in
action. Q&A to follow.
ASL Interpreted
Learn more and
register
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12:00pm
DC
NEW PLAY DEVELOPMENT
Moderated by Kelsey
Mesa
Panel: Otis Ramsey-Zöe, Karen Ann Daniels, Danielle
A. Drakes, Psalmayene 24
The Folger Theatre’s Reading Room Festival and
the productions that have emerged from the series are part
of the DC theater community’s new play development
ecosystem. What other opportunities exist in our city for
artists to develop new works? What opportunities can be
created if we examine our collective resources as writers,
directors, leaders, audiences, and organizations? By
working and dreaming together, we can move toward creating
more space for a new generation of plays. We can contribute
to the national landscape of the American theater in ways
only DC can.
Join moderator Kelsey Mesa (Kennedy Center
Manager of Kennedy Center American College Theater
Festival) with Karen Ann Daniels (Folger Theatre Artistic
Director), Danielle A. Drakes (director, Towson University
professor, and Taffety Punk Company member), Otis
Ramsey-Zoë (Arena Stage Literary Director Manager), and
Psalmayene 24 (playwright, director, and actor). Together,
the panel will continue a conversation on new play
development efforts in the DC area that was started at the
Kennedy Center’s Local Theatre Festival.
Learn more and
get tickets
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4:00pm
HAMLET
by William
Shakespeare
Directed by Laurie Woolery
Adapted by Reynaldo Piniella and Emily Lyon
Spanish translation by Christin Eve Cato
Hamlet is a Black, Latinx prince in this
bilingual reimagining of Shakespeare’s tragedy, with text
infused by the Spanish spoken in present-day New York City.
Learn more and
get tickets
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Folger Shakespeare Library | 201 East
Capitol Street, SE Washington, DC 20003
Main (202) 544-4600 | Box Office (202)
544-7077 | info@folger.edu
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